The BBC has named Russian pop diva Alla Pugacheva, jailed anti-war activist Alexandra Skochilenko and prominent journalist Taisia Bekbulatova on its list of the year’s most influential women. The Russian entries in the 2022 edition of the annual 100 Women list of inspiring and influential women highlight the “female faces of conflict and resistance in Ukraine…
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Latvia’s decision Tuesday to withdraw the broadcast license of independent Russian television channel Dozhd caused disbelief and anger among the media outlet’s journalists and soul-searching among other Russian journalists in exile. The Baltic country’s media watchdog said in a statement announcing the revocation that Dozhd posed “threats to national security and social order” following a…
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A St. Petersburg court on Tuesday recognized the Russian human rights NGO Vesna as an extremist organization, the group announced in a statement, a move that if upheld will compel the organization to disband and cease all activity in Russia. “We plan to appeal this decision and to continue working … It’s not a secret…
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Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Tuesday that the border region is forming self-defense units amid Russia’s ongoing war with neighboring Ukraine. “Literally from the very first days of the beginning of the special military operation, a large number of residents of the Belgorod region addressed the need to begin training and forming territorial defense…
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Do Russians support the war in Ukraine? This question has been discussed intensely since the invasion in February. According to surveys from major Russian pollsters (including the independent Levada Center and state-controlled VTsIOM) about 75% of the population does support the invasion. But many are deeply skeptical of these figures. Russian officials have access to…
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Police in Russia’s Rostov region are searching for a suspected deserter from the Russian army who shot at police officers in the southern Russian city of Novoshakhtinsk near the Russian-Ukraine border on Tuesday, Russian news agency TASS reported. The man reportedly fired at police officers after emerging from a wooded area on the outskirts of…
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Russian bookstores have started removing LGBT-themed works from their catalogues after President Vladimir Putin signed a wide-reaching ban on expressions of LGBT identity into law on Monday. Under the new law that entered into force immediately after its signing, bookstores, film and video game makers, as well as advertisers and media outlets, risk being shut…
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President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday met with top officials on Russia’s “domestic security” as the Kremlin said the latest Ukrainian drone attacks presented a danger to the country. Earlier Tuesday, authorities said that a drone had struck near an airfield in Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine, a day after Moscow blamed Kyiv for drone strikes…
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Russia has pounded Ukraine with newly made cruise missiles in recent weeks, British weapons researchers said Monday, suggesting that production has continued months after Western governments imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow. The Conflict Armament Research (CAR) said its experts were in Kyiv on Nov. 23 when Russia fired around 70 cruise missiles. Analysis of two…
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Updates with court ruling, adds top three lines. A Moscow court on Tuesday ordered the arrest in absentia of two Ukrainian ministers after they were accused of violating Russia’s territorial integrity. The decision came following a request by the FSB security service to arrest in absentia Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk and Deputy Foreign…
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Jailed Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, who was admitted to intensive care last week, has been returned to jail and is being monitored by doctors, her allies have said. She was arrested and handed 11 years behind bars last year in the wake of huge and long-running popular protests against the authoritarian rule of strongman…
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Latvia said Tuesday that it is revoking the independent Russian television channel Dozhd’s broadcasting license, citing “threats to national security and social order” following a series of infringements related to the channel’s coverage of the war in Ukraine. “Dozhd TV will disappear from the airwaves on Thursday, Dec. 8,” tweeted Ivars Abolins, chairman of Latvia’s…
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Ukraine worked to restore power on Tuesday after Russia’s latest wave of missile strikes caused power disruptions across the country, right as winter frost builds and temperatures plunge. Out of the 70 missiles launched by Moscow, “most” were shot down, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, but the barrage still hit Ukraine’s already battered infrastructure. Fresh power…
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The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukrainian drone attacks caused explosions at two airfields in the Saratov and Ryazan regions on Monday, leaving three dead. On Monday morning “the Kyiv regime attempted to strike the Dyagilevo airfield in the Ryazan region, and the Engels airfield in the Saratov region, with Soviet-made drones,” the ministry said in…
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The investigation of the war in Ukraine by the International Criminal Court (ICC) should not be “set up to fail” by plans to create a separate special tribunal for Russia, its prosecutor said on Monday. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week proposed a UN-backed special court to prosecute the Russian leadership for…
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The battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in the country’s eastern Donetsk region has become the bloodiest of the war so far and has even prompted comparisons to the great battles of World War I for its trench warfare, high casualty numbers and largely static frontline. While the medium-sized city has been shelled by…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law expanding the existing ban on the prohibition of “LGBT propaganda” to children to include the entire population on Monday. People of all ages are now banned from accessing certain content under the new legislation. From now on, LGBT relationships and “lifestyles” cannot be displayed or mentioned, according to…
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President Vladimir Putin on Monday visited the bridge that links Moscow-annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland weeks after the vital link was hit by a blast, images on state television showed. It was the closest the 70-year-old Russian leader has come to the frontline in Ukraine, after sending troops to the pro-Western country on Feb.…
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A former Russian prisoner who had his jail sentence reduced to allow him to serve in the Russian military in Ukraine has been confirmed dead after claiming to have been threatened with execution, investigative news website The Insider reported, citing prominent prisoners’ rights NGO Gulagu.net. Victor Sevalnev, who served as the commander of the 7th…
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After six months of combat with Russia’s 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade in Ukraine, Alexei Astashov quietly rejoiced when he was discharged from the army and sent back to his former life as a veterinarian in the Far East. But amid the elation of being reunited with his wife and son, he has still not been…
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A Russian prosecutor on Monday requested a nine-year prison sentence for Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin for denouncing Vladimir Putin’s military intervention in Ukraine. According to the prosecution, Yashin, a 39-year-old former Moscow city deputy, was guilty of claiming that the occupying Russian military had been responsible for the massacre of civilians in the Kyiv suburb…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law expanding the existing ban on so-called “LGBT propaganda” toward the entire population, not just minors, on Monday. People of all ages are now banned from accessing certain content under the new legislation. From now on, LGBT relationships and “lifestyles” cannot be displayed or mentioned, according to activists. The…
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Georgia’s jailed ex-president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has been “poisoned” in custody by heavy metals and risks dying without proper treatment, according to a medical report distributed on Monday by his legal team. The 54-year-old was transferred to the hospital last year after a hunger strike that he maintained for 50 days to protest at his jailing,…
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Longtime Kremlin ally Alexei Kudrin confirmed Monday that he has accepted a role at tech giant Yandex as senior adviser. Kudrin, 62, a former finance minister and economic liberal, stepped down as head of the country’s Audit Chamber last week, with state agencies reporting that he was expected to take a leadership role at Yandex…
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Three people have been killed and at least two nuclear-capable bombers likely damaged in separate blasts at two Russian airfields, state and independent media outlets reported Monday. Russia’s Defense Ministry has not yet commented on the alleged incidents, which took place hundreds of kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Two Tu-95 long-range strategic nuclear bombers were damaged…
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At least 2,500 dead Caspian seals have been found on the shores of Russia’s Caspian Sea coast, local authorities said Sunday. Photos published online showed the mammals’ carcasses scattered across the beach. The Russian republic of Dagestan’s natural resources ministry said the endangered seals had likely died of “natural causes,” adding that laboratory tests will…
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The price cap on Russian oil agreed by the EU, G7 and Australia is set to come into force on Monday. It aims to restrict Russia’s revenue while making sure Moscow keeps supplying the global market. Embargo and cap The cap is due to take effect alongside an EU embargo on maritime deliveries of Russian crude…
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There is currently no diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, a co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian rights organization Memorial said Sunday. “I am absolutely convinced that there is not a diplomatic solution with Putin’s regime, so long as it is still there,” said Irina Scherbakova. “The solution that there will now be…
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YEREVAN, Armenia — Nearly every hand in the packed auditorium went up when the moderator asked who had arrived in this South Caucasus nation after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “And who was living here before then?” Three hands rose from the crowd. At ArtDocFest Yerevan, the longstanding Russian documentary film festival that launched in the…
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Russia on Saturday denounced a $60 price cap on its oil agreed by the EU, G7 and Australia, even as Ukraine suggested it was not tough enough and might have to be revisited. “We will not accept this price cap,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told domestic news agencies, adding that Russia, the world’s second-largest crude exporter, was…
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Everyone knows the dish called “Beef Stroganoff.” But its history is less well known, although no one disputes that the dish belongs to the Stroganov family. But it didn’t appear out of nowhere, did it? Nothing ever does, not in the kitchen or in history. Why is this dish so popular? First, it’s relatively easy…
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ST. PETERSBURG — A museum about LGBT history opened to visitors in Russia’s second-largest city this week — but it looked set to be accessible for only a few days before it is banned under draconian “gay propaganda” laws expected to come into force imminently. “The museum is a political act,” said Russian LGBT activist…
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Бешенство: rabies, fury The Russian language has lots of ways to describe getting angry, losing your temper, and flying off the handle. Сердиться/рассердиться (to get angry) is just so bland. It can’t capture the rage you feel when, say, you spend two hours filling in an online application, hit “save” and watch your work disappear…
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A number of Ukrainian diplomatic missions in the European Union have received packages containing animal eyes in what Kyiv described Friday as a “well-planned campaign of terror.” The Ukrainian foreign ministry announcement came after a security guard at the embassy in Madrid was lightly injured Wednesday opening a letter bomb addressed to the ambassador through…
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Latvia has fined independent Russian television channel Dozhd 10,000 euros ($10,500) over its coverage of the war in Ukraine, the Latvian National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) said Friday. The channel was penalized for displaying a map marking the annexed Crimean peninsula as part of Russia and for referring to the Russian Armed Forces as…
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TikTok kept up hundreds of videos that promote and glorify violent acts allegedly committed by Russian mercenary group Wagner despite their direct violation of the platform’s policies, according to a new investigation by independent misinformation watchdog NewsGuard. NewsGuard’s analysts identified as many as 160 clips explicitly depicting or glorifying violent Wagner-linked activities on the video-sharing…
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President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure were “inevitable” as the Kremlin rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s terms for talks and warned the assault would continue. After suffering humiliating military defeats during what has become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia began targeting Ukrainian energy…
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Russia has successfully test-launched a new missile defense system at its Sary Shagan firing range in neighboring Kazakhstan, the country’s Defense Ministry announced Friday. “The anti-missile defense system is in service with the Aerospace Forces and is designed to protect against air and space attacks,” the ministry said in a statement, without naming the system…
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American whistleblower Edward Snowden has received a Russian passport, the state-run TASS news agency reported Friday, citing Snowden’s lawyer. Snowden, who in 2013 exposed mass surveillance by his former employer the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), has lived in Russia since that year to avoid prosecution by U.S. authorities. President Vladimir Putin granted him citizenship…
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The Kremlin on Friday rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s conditions that Russian troops fully withdraw from Ukraine before he speak with President Vladimir Putin. In the strongest suggestion so far that he would be prepared to sit down with Putin, Biden said late Thursday he would be willing to speak to the Russian leader for…
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Six letter bombs have been sent to high-profile government, military and diplomatic targets in Spain in the past week, prompting authorities to step up security and re-commit support for Ukraine in its nine-month war against invading Russian forces. Here’s what we know so far: Who received the letter bombs? Starting Nov. 24, police intercepted an…
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Ukraine will move to impose limitations on religious organizations in the country which have links to Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Thursday. “The National Security and Defense Council has instructed the government to propose to [parliament] a bill on proscribing activities in Ukraine by religious organizations affiliated with centers of…
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Italy has placed a refinery run by Russian oil giant Lukoil under provisional state supervision to avoid its closure and guarantee energy supplies, a government source told AFP on Thursday. The ISAB refinery is one of the biggest in Europe and was in danger of having to cease production because of the European Union embargo…
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Russian manufacturing firms recorded their fastest rate of growth last month in almost six years due to new export orders and increased demand from domestic customers, according to a business survey published Thursday by S&P Global. Despite Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, “firms expanded their input buying at the fastest…
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A Moscow court has sentenced ex-billionaire Ziyavudin Magomedov to 19 years in a maximum-security prison on charges of embezzling state funds and organizing a criminal group, Interfax reported Thursday. Ziyavudin Magamedov, 54, built his fortune during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency as the founder and main owner of Summa, a Russian holding that unites companies in a…
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Ukraine on Thursday formally sacked and branded a traitor the Ukrainian engineer appointed by Moscow to head Europe’s largest nuclear facility, the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is under Russian occupation. Yuri Chernichuk, the facility’s chief engineer, said on Wednesday that he had agreed to take the post because it was “in my opinion the only correct…
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Jailed Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, who led historic anti-government demonstrations in the ex-Soviet country and was recently hospitalized, is “getting better,” her allies said Thursday. The 40-year-old was part of a trio of women — along with Veronika Tsepkalo and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — who mobilized large crowds against strongman Alexander Lukashenko in 2020. She…
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Russia’s flagship airline Aeroflot said Thursday that it is no longer offering in-flight film, television and music streaming to passengers due to Western sanctions imposed over the Kremlin’s military incursion in Ukraine. In a statement on its official Telegram channel, Aeroflot said foreign companies had stopped providing streaming services to the airline. Aeroflot said the…
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Russia’s flagship airline Aeroflot said Thursday that it is no longer offering in-flight film, television and music streaming to passengers following Western sanctions and business withdrawals over the Kremlin’s military incursion in Ukraine. In a statement on its official Telegram channel, Aeroflot said foreign companies had stopped providing streaming services to the airline. Aeroflot said…
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Switzerland said Thursday that it has to date frozen a total of 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.9 billion) in Russian assets, in connection with the sanctions imposed over Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The amount, which has been fluctuating for months, is nearly 1 billion francs more than the figure provided by the State Secretariat for…
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Any tribunal established to prosecute alleged Russian war crimes during its invasion of Ukraine would lack “legitimacy” and would not be recognized by Moscow, the Kremlin said Thursday. “As for attempts to establish some kind of tribunals, they will not have any legitimacy, will not be accepted by us and will be condemned by us,”…
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Moscow said Thursday that a decision by German lawmakers to recognize the 1930s starvation of millions in Ukraine as “genocide” was an attempt to “demonize Russia.” The 1932-33 Holodomor — Ukrainian for “death by starvation” — is regarded by Kyiv as a deliberate act of genocide by Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s regime, and it has long…
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Moscow on Thursday described as “un-Christian” recent comments by Pope Francis that Russian ethnic minorities were among the “cruelest” actors in Moscow’s military ranks in Ukraine. “Pope Francis calls for talks but also recently made an incomprehensible statement, completely un-Christian, singling out two Russian nationalities into some category from which atrocities can be expected during…
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Russian authorities have banned public discussions of a wide range of non-classified military subjects that activists say will effectively prevent the public from learning crucial information about the Armed Forces. The 60-point Federal Security Service (FSB) order, which enters into force Dec. 1, lists information that is not classified as a state secret, but which…
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A court outside Moscow has jailed a Ukrainian singer over an Instagram post that “incited hatred” toward the Russian military at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, media reported Wednesday. Investigators said Igor Levchenko posted a video on Feb. 24 containing “signs of incitement to hatred and enmity against Russian servicemen with the threat…
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European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday floated the idea of a “specialized court” to put Russia’s top officials on trial over the war in Ukraine. On the ground, Russia said it had captured a few settlements in eastern Ukraine, eager for a win after a series of setbacks since invading its pro-Western…
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Russian President Vladimir Putin last week met with the mothers of Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine in an event that was timed to coincide with Mother’s Day in Russia. Before the gathering even came to an end, journalists had managed to identify most participants as women with close ties to the government and the ruling…
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European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday floated the idea of a “specialized court” to put Russia’s top officials on trial over the war in Ukraine. “While continuing to support the International Criminal Court, we are proposing to set up a specialized court backed by the United Nations to investigate and prosecute Russia’s…
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The Russian military should deploy next-generation weapons in its campaign in Ukraine, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday. “We need to continue upgrading and creating advanced systems with their subsequent application in the special military operation,” Shoigu said at a ministerial board meeting. Shoigu did not specify which types of innovative weapons systems he was…
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South Korea’s military said it scrambled fighter jets Wednesday as six Russian and two Chinese warplanes entered its air defense zone without notice. Japan’s military also said it had scrambled jets in response to flights over the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, by Russian and Chinese aircraft. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of…
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